Sorting Lists with Equal Keys Using Mergesort in Linear Time

12/15/2020

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by   Albert Tedja, et al.

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This article introduces a new optimization method to improve mergesort's runtime complexity, when sorting sequences that have equal keys to O(n log_2 k), where k is the number of distinct keys in the sequence. When k is constant, it is evident that mergesort is capable of achieving linear time by utilizing linked lists as its underlying data structure. Mergesort linked list implementations can be optimized by introducing a new mechanism to group elements with equal keys together, thus allowing merge algorithm to achieve linear time.